The first 20 hours how to learn anything fast ( PDFDrive )

The First 20 Hours How to Learn Anything Fast MANTESHWER Typewritten Text MANTESHWER Typewritten Text MANTESHWER Typewritten Text MANTESHWER Typewritten Text MANTESHWER Typewritten Text MANTESHWER Ty.

Mantesh

Mantesh

Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England For m ore inform ation about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com Copy right © Worldly Wisdom Ventures LLC, 2013 All rights reserved No part of this book m ay be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without perm ission Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copy righted m aterials in violation of the author’s

rights Purchase only authorized editions.

Photographs by the author Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kaufm an, Josh.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-101-62304-6

1 Expertise 2 Learning, Psy chology of I Title II Title: First twenty hours.

BF378.E94K38 2013 153.1'5—dc23 2013007595

For Lela

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

A Note to the Reader

1 A Portrait of the Author as a Learning Junkie

2 Ten Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition

3 Ten Principles of Effective Learning

A Note to the Reader

The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.

—GEOFFREY CHAUCER, PARLEMENT OF FOULES, 1374

•••

“There’s so much I want to do and so little time.” The story of modern life

Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn how to do What’s on your list?What’s holding you back from getting started?

Two things, most likely: time and skill

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: the most rewarding experiences in life almost always require somelevel of skill Skills take time and effort to master—time we don’t have, and effort we’re reluctant tocontribute

“I’ll get around to it someday, when I find the time.”

It’s easier to sit in front of the television or surf the web, frankly so that’s what most of us do,and our desires remain dreams

Here’s another uncomfortable truth: many things aren’t fun until you’re good at them Every skill

has what I call a frustration barrier—a period of time in which you’re horribly unskilled, and you’re

painfully aware of that fact Why start something when you know you’re going to be bad at it?

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to master new skills with less angst? To break through thefrustration barrier quickly, so you can get to the rewarding part? To spend less time slogging throughconfusion and doubt, and more time having fun?

Is it possible to acquire new skills less painfully, in a way that requires far less time and effort?

I speak from experience: yes, it’s possible

This book is about my personal quest to test the art and science of rapid skill acquisition—how to

learn any new skill as quickly as possible The purpose of this book is to help you acquire new skills

in record time

In my experience, it takes around twenty hours of practice to break through the frustration barrier:

to go from knowing absolutely nothing about what you’re trying to do to performing noticeably well.This book is a systematic approach to acquiring new skills as quickly as possible The method isuniversal It doesn’t matter whether you want to learn a language, write a novel, paint a portrait, start

a business, or fly an airplane If you invest as little as twenty hours in learning the basics of the skill,you’ll be surprised at how good you become

Whatever skill you wish to acquire, this book will help you acquire it in less time and with lesswasted energy With a bit of focused, strategic effort, you’ll find yourself performing well quickly,without the fist-pounding frustration

In this book, we’ll start with the principles of rapid skill acquisition: how to go about acquiringnew skills as quickly as possible These ideas and practices aren’t complicated, so they won’t takelong to learn

Then, I’ll explain how to use these principles in the real world by showing you how I acquired thefollowing six new skills in twenty hours or less each, with no more than ninety minutes of practice

per day.

Developing a personal yoga practice

Writing a web-based computer program

Relearning to touch-type

Exploring the oldest and most complex board game in history

Playing a musical instrument

Windsurfing

I hope that this book encourages you to dust off your old “want to do” list, reexamine it, andcommit to learning something new

Josh Kaufman

Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

For updates about the material in this book, visit http://first20hours.com/updates.

Mantesh

1

A Portrait of the Author as a Learning Junkie

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time Sometimes this makes

planning my day difficult.

—E B WHITE, ESSAYIST AND AUTHOR OF CHARLOTTE’S WEB AND THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

•••

Hi My name is Josh Kaufman, and I’m a learning addict

My home and office shelves are piled high with books, tools, and unused equipment of all sorts,most of which are slowly accumulating dust

I have a “to learn” list hundreds of items long My Amazon.com shopping cart currently has 241items in it—all books I want to read I can’t walk into a bookstore without leaving with three or fournew books, to be added to the 852 volumes I already own

Every day, I come up an idea for another project or experiment, which I add to my ever-growing

“someday/maybe” list Looking at everything I want to learn how to do feels overwhelming, so I don’tlook at the list very often

I want to learn how to improve my publishing business I want to learn how to shoot and editvideos I want to produce an audio program I want to learn how to give better seminars and teachbetter courses

I have ideas for a new product, but I don’t know how to build it I have ideas for new computerprograms, but I don’t know how to create them I have more potential writing project ideas in myhead than the time and energy to write them

I want to learn how to draw I want to learn how to white-water kayak I want to learn fly fishing Iwant to learn rock climbing I want to be able to play the guitar, the ukulele, the piano, and theelectric violin

There are games I’ve been interested in for years, like Go, but I haven’t learned how to play them Ihave games that I already know how to play, like chess, but I’m not very good at them, so they’re notmuch fun, and I don’t play them very often

I like the idea of playing golf, but every game I’ve played turned into a stoic exercise in laughingoff embarrassment (I usually say I play marathon golf: by the end of eighteen holes, I’ve run amarathon.)

It seems as though every day I add some new skill to the list of things I want to be able to do, adinfinitum So much to learn, so little time

By nature, I’m a do-it-yourself kind of guy If something needs to be done, I’d rather give it a gomyself than look for help Even if someone else could do it faster or better, I’m reluctant to rob

myself of the learning experience.

To complicate matters, Kelsey, my wife, runs her own business, publishing continuing educationcourses for yoga teachers Business is good for both of us, so there’s always a lot to be done

To make life even more interesting, we welcomed our daughter, Lela, into the world Lela is ninemonths old as I write this

Before Lela was born, Kelsey and I decided that if we were going to have kids, we wanted to makeraising them ourselves a priority One of the major reasons I quit my former management-track job at

a Fortune 500 corporation was to have the flexibility to work from home, set my own schedule, andspend as much time as possible with my family

Kelsey and I share parenting responsibilities equally Since we’re a two-business household,Kelsey works in the morning, while I take care of Lela In the afternoon, Kelsey takes care of Lela,and I work until dinnertime That gives me around twenty-five hours each week to work, pluswhatever time I can snatch while Lela is napping

After Lela was born, I felt like I barely had enough time to get my work done, let alone acquirenew skills For a learning addict, it was crazy-making

I don’t want to give up on learning and growth completely, even with my new responsibilities Idon’t have very much free time, but I’m willing to invest what I have as wisely as possible

That’s what prompted my interest in what I call rapid skill acquisition: methods of learning newskills quickly

I want to continue to acquire new skills, but I don’t want the process to take forever I want to pick

up the essentials quickly, so I can make noticeable progress without constantly feeling frustrated.I’m sure you can relate How much “free” time do you have each day, after all of your work andfamily obligations are complete? Do you feel like you’d need thirty-six or forty-eight hours in a day tofinally sit down and learn something new?

There’s an old cliché: “work smarter, not harder.” As it turns out, the process of skill acquisition is

not really about the raw hours you put in it’s what you put into those hours.

Damn You, Malcolm Gladwell

In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book titled Outliers: The Story of Success In it, he set about

trying to explain what makes certain people more successful than others

One of the ideas Gladwell mentions over and over again is what he calls the “10,000 hour rule.”Based on research conducted by Dr K Anders Ericsson of Florida State University, expert-levelperformance takes, on average, ten thousand hours of deliberate practice to achieve.1

Ten thousand hours equals eight hours of deliberate practice every day for approximately three and

a half years, with no breaks, no weekends, and no vacations Assuming a standard 260 working days

a year with no distractions, that’s a full-time job for almost five years, assuming you spend 100percent of that time exerting 100 percent of your energy and effort

In practice, this level of focused attention is extremely taxing Even world-class performers inultracompetitive fields (like music performance and professional sports) can only muster the energyfor approximately three and a half hours of deliberate practice every day That means it can take adecade or more to develop a skill to mastery

In essence, if you want to master a new skill, Dr Ericsson’s research indicates you’re in for a verylong haul Being the best in the world at anything, even for a little while, requires years of relentlesspractice If you’re not willing to put in the time and effort, you’ll be overshadowed by those who do

Outliers shot straight to the top of the nonfiction bestseller lists, and stayed there for three months.

Overnight, the “10,000 hour rule” was everywhere

As if learning a new skill wasn’t hard enough Not only do you have to make time for practice but you now also have to put in ten thousand hours? Most of us count ourselves lucky if we can setaside a few hours a week Why bother at all if it takes so long to be good at something?

Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!

Before you give up all hope, consider this

There’s an element of Dr Ericsson’s research that’s very easy to overlook: it’s a study of

expert-level performance If you’re looking to become the next Tiger Woods, you’ll probably need to spend

at least ten thousand hours deliberately and systematically practicing every aspect of golf Almostevery single professional golfer began playing at a very young age and has been practicing nonstopfor at least seven years Developing world-class mastery takes time

On the other hand, what if winning the PGA Tour isn’t your goal? What if you just want to be goodenough at golf that you’re able to play decently, not embarrass yourself, have a good time, and maybehave a fighting chance to win your local country club tournament?

That’s another matter entirely World-class mastery may take ten thousand hours of focused effort,

but developing the capacity to perform well enough for your own purposes usually requires far less

of an investment

That’s not to discount the value of what Ericsson calls “deliberate practice”: intentionally andsystematically practicing in order to improve a skill Deliberate practice is the core of skill

acquisition The question is how much deliberate practice is required to reach your goal Usually, it’s

much less than you think

Quality, Not Quantity

Embracing the idea of sufficiency is the key to rapid skill acquisition In this book, we’re going to

discuss developing capacity, not world-class mastery We’re going to tackle the steep part of thelearning curve and ascend it as quickly as possible

Leave the ten thousand hours to the pros We’re going to start with twenty hours of concentrated,intelligent, focused effort

We’re shooting for the results we value with a fraction of the effort You may never win a goldmedal, but you’ll reap the rewards you care about in far less time

If you ultimately decide to master the skill, you’ll have a better chance of success if you start withtwenty hours of rapid skill acquisition By knowing what you’re getting into, learning thefundamentals, practicing intelligently, and developing a practice routine, you’ll make progress morequickly and consistently, and you’ll achieve expert status in record time

What Is Rapid Skill Acquisition?

Rapid skill acquisition is a process—a way of breaking down the skill you’re trying to acquire intothe smallest possible parts, identifying which of those parts are most important, then deliberatelypracticing those elements first It’s as simple as that

Rapid skill acquisition has four major steps:

Deconstructing a skill into the smallest possible subskills;

Learning enough about each subskill to be able to practice intelligently and self-correct during

practice;

Removing physical, mental, and emotional barriers that get in the way of practice;

Practicing the most important subskills for at least twenty hours.

That’s it Rapid skill acquisition is not rocket science You simply decide what to practice, figureout the best way to practice, make time to practice, then practice until you reach your target level ofperformance

There’s no magic to it—just smart, strategic effort invested in something you care about With alittle preparation, you’ll acquire new skills rapidly, with less effort

That’s not to say that the results will be instant The desire for instant gratification is one of theprimary reasons people don’t acquire new skills very quickly

The “Matrix” Misconception

Remember the scene in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves opens his eyes, blinks a few times, and

whispers “I know kung fu”?

Sorry to break it to you: rapid skill acquisition isn’t that rapid.

Hollywood has done us a great disservice when it comes to skill acquisition While it wouldcertainly be nice to be able to learn how to pilot a Bell 212 helicopter in five seconds by uploadingsoftware directly into our brain, science is currently way behind science fiction

Until brain uploads become a reality, “rapid” means taking considerably less time than it wouldtypically take to learn a skill if you went about the process as most people do: blindly, haphazardly,and inconsistently

One of the first professional skills I acquired was web development: being able to build useful,functioning websites Beginning with a basic Angelfire.com website in 1996, I taught myself how toread and write HTML and CSS (the lingua franca of the web), use Adobe Photoshop to edit images,configure web servers, and maintain the systems that publish my work

I didn’t learn how to do these things in high school or college Although I completed myundergraduate degree in business information systems, the overlap between what I learned in theclassroom and what I do on a day-to-day basis is essentially nil

I acquired the skill of web development by trying things at random and figuring it out as I wentalong Every time I stumbled upon a new technique or tool that promised to enhance my website orreduce my workload, I experimented with it Over a long period of time, my skills improved

My haphazard approach to acquiring web development skills served the purpose: I got a job based

on those skills, and I now publish information on the web for a living Mission accomplished, fromone perspective

On the other hand, I learned everything the hard way You could certainly reach my level ofcompetence in these skills in much less than fifteen years if you approached the topic in a systematicway If you went about practicing these skills intelligently, you could approach my general level ofcompetence in a month

That’s what I mean by rapid skill acquisition If you could learn most of what I know about webdesign in a single focused month versus fifteen years, that’s a massive improvement It’s also wellwithin the realm of possibility

The amount of time it will take you to acquire a new skill is largely a matter of how muchconcentrated time you’re willing to invest in deliberate practice and smart experimentation and howgood you need to become to perform at the level you desire

Don’t expect overnight results Do expect that your total time invested will be much, much less than

it would otherwise be if you jumped into the process without a strategy

Before we explore the method in detail, there’s something you should know: rapid skill acquisitionhas nothing in common with how you “learned how to learn” in school Academic learning andcredentialing have almost zero overlap with skill acquisition, let alone achieving it quickly

Skill Acquisition vs LearningLike many high school students in the United States, I studied a foreign language Every school day forfour years, I sat in a Spanish class My marks were high: straight As.

Today, aside from saying hola, cómo estás, and muy bien, I can’t hold a conversation with a native Spanish speaker to save my life (I don’t even know what to say if I’m not having a good day.)

On the other side of the spectrum, my friend, Carlos Miceli, grew up speaking Spanish inArgentina In high school, Carlos decided he wanted to speak fluent English, so he made an effort tostrike up as many conversations as possible with native-English speakers In the process, hediscovered Skype and set up his own website, so he could practice speaking and writing Englishregularly

Carlos never took a class He doesn’t know the formal rules of English grammar He can’t even tell

you how he knows English That isn’t really important He can speak and write English fluently,

which is what really matters

Dr Stephen Krashen, of the University of Southern California, is an expert in the area of

second-language acquisition One of Krashen’s primary insights is that second-language acquisition is different from language learning.

In school, I learned a lot about Spanish I learned thousands of vocabulary words, verb

conjugation, and the rules of grammar I learned all of these things well enough to pass the tests withflying colors

Those tests, however, had nothing to do with my ability to exercise the skills of speaking Spanishintelligibly and understanding a native speaker talking at full speed If my goal was to be able tospeak Spanish fluently, a few weeks of trying to converse with people in Spanish would’ve producedbetter results than four years of schooling

At that time, speaking Spanish fluently wasn’t my goal I just wanted to ace the final exam Carlos,

on the other hand, skipped the classroom and simply started practicing Instead of doing verbconjugation drills, Carlos was practicing what really mattered: communicating with other people inEnglish

In terms of effectiveness and long-term value, Carlos’s approach was far superior to mine Nocontest

The True Value of LearningThat’s not to say learning about the skill you’re acquiring isn’t important Learning can be extremely

important, but not in the way you’d expect Learning concepts related to a skill helps you self-edit or

self-correct as you’re practicing.

If you know how to conjugate verbs in Spanish, you’re better able to self-correct your speechwhile talking to a native speaker If you learn common vocabulary words, you’re better able tounderstand what a native speaker is saying, as well as remember an appropriate word or phrase touse when you get stuck while speaking

Dr Krashen calls this the monitor hypothesis Learning helps you plan, edit, and correct yourself

as you practice That’s why learning is valuable The trouble comes when we confuse learning withskill acquisition

If you want to acquire a new skill, you must practice it in context Learning enhances practice, but it

doesn’t replace it If performance matters, learning alone is never enough

Skill Acquisition vs Training

There’s also a huge difference between skill acquisition and training Training, in this context, means

improving a skill you’ve already acquired through repetition It’s what happens after you’ve acquired

a basic skill if you want to keep improving

Take running a marathon, for example Most of us acquired the skill of running during childhood.Aside from putting one foot in front of the other and staying on your feet until you’ve covered 26.2miles, there’s not much in the way of new skills to acquire

There is, however, a significant amount of necessary exertion required to strengthen your body andacclimate to the level of physical fitness it takes to complete a marathon That exertion andstrengthening process is training The more you train, the stronger you become, and the faster youcomplete the marathon

There’s also an element of learning involved when running a marathon: how to sign up toparticipate in races, how to qualify for large events like the Boston Marathon, knowing what to expect

as you run, pacing, useful equipment, et cetera

For example, a small issue like friction between your shirt and your skin isn’t a big deal if you’re

running a 5K, so most runners don’t think about it Unnecessary friction becomes a huge deal when

you’re running 26.2 miles

Fail to prepare in advance and you’re likely to experience the infamous “bleeding nipples”problem It’s painful, embarrassing and entirely preventable (Don’t believe me? Google it.)

Training and learning will certainly make it easier to finish the race, but they’re not skillacquisition Without a certain amount of skill acquisition, training isn’t possible or useful.Preparation and conditioning can make some forms of skill acquisition easier, but they can neverreplace practice

Relearning how to run at a basic level, however, is skill acquisition Techniques like ChiRunning2

help the runner acquire the skill of moving in a way that minimizes effort and loss of forwardmomentum between strides With a bit of practice, the runner can reacquire the core skill of running,which can then be reinforced in subsequent training

Skill Acquisition vs Education and CredentialingDespite the high-minded efforts of teachers and professors around the world, modern methods ofeducation and credentialing have almost nothing to do with skill acquisition.

Skill acquisition requires practicing the skill in question It requires significant periods ofsustained, focused concentration It requires creativity, flexibility, and the freedom to set your ownstandard of success

Unfortunately, most modern methods of education and credentialing require simple compliance.The primary (but unstated) goal isn’t to acquire useful skills, it’s to certify completion of a mostlyarbitrary set of criteria, established by standards committees far removed from the student, for thepurpose of validating certain qualities some third party appears to care about

Creativity, flexibility, and freedom to experiment—the essential elements of rapid skill acquisition

—are antithetical to the credentialing process If the standards are too flexible, they’re not reallystandards, are they?

Unfortunately, rigorous education and credentialing can actively prevent skill acquisition The

primary problem is opportunity cost: if the requirements to obtain the credential are so intense thatthey impair your ability to spend time practicing the skills in question, credentialing programs can domore harm than good

Take a smart, motivated individual who is interested in starting a software company Completing

an undergraduate degree in computer science at a prestigious university usually takes at least fouryears.3

At the end of those four years, our newly minted graduate has spent thousands of hours learningalgorithms and analyzing compilers well enough to pass dozens of examinations, but she is no closer

to founding a software company than she was when she entered the university Our unfortunate studenthas memorized many things about computer programming, at least temporarily, but she still doesn’tknow how to create a computer program that people find useful enough to purchase

Starting a software company requires acquiring new skills: learning programming languages,setting up and maintaining computer systems, researching available tools and programs, creatingprototypes, finding early users, obtaining any necessary funding or financing, and handling commonbusiness administrative tasks

Is there some overlap between starting a startup and obtaining an educational credential? Sure Butnotice the emphasis: most of the effort of obtaining a credential is devoted to the process of meetingthe requirements Whether or not those requirements actually help you acquire the skills you need toperform in the real world is a tertiary concern at best

In my first book, The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business (2010), I explained why I

decided to skip graduate-level business education in favor of teaching myself the principles ofmodern business practice and starting my own company By avoiding business school, and spending

my time actually building businesses instead, I learned a ton, and saved over $150,000 in the process.Given what I wanted to accomplish, dedicating time to business skill acquisition on my own wasbetter than business school in every respect

If you want to get good at anything where real-life performance matters, you have to actuallypractice that skill in context Study, by itself, is never enough

The Neurophysiology of Skill: Brain Plasticity and Muscle MemoryOne last thing before we jump into the nuts and bolts of rapid skill acquisition: you must fullyappreciate the fact that you’re capable of acquiring new skills.

That seems like an odd thing to say, but it’s easy to believe your skills are fixed—that you’re eithergood or talented or gifted at something or you’re not

In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007), psychologist Carol Dweck cites a wide body

of research that indicates individuals commonly hold one of two views of how their minds work.According to Dr Dweck, people with a “fixed” mind-set assume that skills and talents are innate,that you’re born with certain abilities that are what they are If a person with a fixed mind-set is “notgood at math,” then extra effort practicing math is a waste Why bother if you’re never going to begood at it?

People with a “growth” mind-set, on the other hand, assume that skills and abilities grow withpractice and persistence If a person with a growth mind-set gets a few math problems wrong, it’s notbecause they’re not blessed with good-at-mathness; it’s because they haven’t practiced enough Withpersistence and practice, it’s only a matter of time before they will master the technique

Here’s the good news if you find yourself falling into the fixed mind-set trap: a wide (and growing)body of research indicates that all brains are capable of improving skills and capabilities withpractice Genetic predispositions exist, but they’re very minor compared to the power of focused,intelligent practice You can improve any skill, provided you’re willing to practice

The human brain is plastic—a term neuroscientists use to indicate that your brain physically

changes in response to your environment, your actions, and the consequences of those actions As youlearn any new skill, physical or mental, the neurological wiring of your brain changes as you practiceit

In the words of Dr Jon Medina (Brain Rules, 2009) “neurons that fire together wire together,”

forming unique new patterns in the physical circuitry of your brain Over time, your neurons begin tofire in more efficient patterns in response to the feedback you receive from your environment as youpractice

If you’re working on a motor skill (that is, a skill that involves physical movement), you’re always

relatively awkward and slow at first You have to think about everything you’re doing, and you oftenmake frustrating mistakes Learning the basics is a constant struggle

As you practice, your muscle coordination becomes more automatic and synchronized with yourmental processes You gain the ability to pay more attention to the subtle elements of what you’redoing, and you learn to adjust your approach to the feedback you get from the environment

You start doing more of what works, and less of what doesn’t Eventually, you’re able to performwithout conscious attention to every detail

In academic literature, this general process is called the “three-stage model” of skill acquisition,4

and it applies to both physical and mental skills The three stages are

1 Cognitive (Early) Stage—understanding what you’re trying to do, researching, thinking

about the process, and breaking the skill into manageable parts

2 Associative (Intermediate) Stage—practicing the task, noticing environmental

feedback, and adjusting your approach based on that feedback

3 Autonomous (Late) Stage—performing the skill effectively and efficiently without

thinking about it or paying unnecessary attention to the process

This neurophysiological skill acquisition process is happening all the time, even while you’rereading this sentence There is no such thing as a mind in stasis Your brain is learning, encoding, andconsolidating new skills all the time.

As Dr Dweck says in Mindset: “Your mind is like a muscle: the more you use it, the more it

grows.” The more you practice, the more efficient, effective, and automatic the skill becomes

That’s great news when it comes to rapid skill acquisition If your mind and body are capable of

learning to perform in new and better ways, we can figure out how to make that process faster.

2

Ten Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition

I realized that becoming a master of karate was not about learning 4,000 moves but about doing just a handful of moves

Think of these principles as ways to identify a skill worthy of temporary obsession, focus on it, andremove distractions or barriers that distract you from effective practice

Here are the ten major principles of rapid skill acquisition:

1 Choose a lovable project

2 Focus your energy on one skill at a time

3 Define your target performance level

4 Deconstruct the skill into subskills

5 Obtain critical tools

6 Eliminate barriers to practice

7 Make dedicated time for practice

8 Create fast feedback loops

9 Practice by the clock in short bursts

10 Emphasize quantity and speed

Many of these principles may strike you as common sense, and that’s okay Remember: simplyknowing these principles is not enough You must actually use them to reap the rewards

1 Choose a lovable project.

Karl Popper was one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century He’s the guy who

popularized the idea of scientific falsifiability In layman’s terms, if you can’t potentially prove

something wrong via observation or experiment, it’s not actually science

Popper said many wise things, but I think the following remark is among the wisest: “The best thingthat can happen to a human being is to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to livetrying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.”

If you want a formula for living a satisfying, productive life, you can’t go wrong with that one.Rapid skill acquisition requires choosing a lovable problem or project The more excited you areabout the skill you want to acquire, the more quickly you’ll acquire it

In practice, finding a lovable project is a very individual matter For example, learning to speakand write Mandarin Chinese is not on my current list of skills to acquire because I have no urgentneed to learn it at the moment, and I have a lot of other projects I’m more interested in tackling If Idecide to move to a Mandarin-speaking part of China in the future, it may become lovable, but I’m notthere yet

On the other hand, I’m intensely interested in learning how to play Go, the world’s oldest strategicboard game, which originated in China more than three thousand years ago It’s a beautiful game, andI’ve wanted to learn how to play since I stumbled across it years ago

Learning to play Go requires study The rules are simple, but accurately reading the evolvingpatterns of alternating black and white stones on the board is a challenge Computers have dominatedchess for years now, but even the best computers have a difficult time challenging an experiencedhuman Go player

You naturally learn things you care about faster than things you don’t I’m currently more interested

in learning how to play Go, so I’m going to learn Go first, and save Mandarin for later

If you focus on acquiring your prime skill (that is, your most lovable project) before anything else,

you’ll acquire it in far less time

2 Focus your energy on one skill at a time.

One of the easiest mistakes to make when acquiring new skills is attempting to acquire too manyskills at the same time

It’s a matter of simple math: acquiring new skills requires a critical mass of concentrated time andfocused attention If you only have an hour or two each day to devote to practice and learning, and youspread that time and energy across twenty different skills, no individual skill is going to receiveenough time and energy to generate noticeable improvement

Internalizing this principle is more difficult for some people than others Personally, I’ve alwayshad a “Renaissance man” sort of temperament: there are hundreds of things I want to learn at anygiven moment, in hundreds of different areas Emotionally, it’s difficult for me to decide to deferlearning new things I discover or hear about.1

When I try to learn everything at once, however, I don’t really learn anything Instead of makingprogress, I spend too much time switching between different skills, getting frustrated, and moving on

to something else That’s a recipe for extremely slow skill acquisition

Pick one, and only one, new skill you wish to acquire Put all of your spare focus and energy into

acquiring that skill, and place other skills on temporary hold David Allen, author of Getting Things

Done (2002), recommends establishing what he calls a “someday/maybe” list: a list of things you

may want to explore sometime in the future, but that aren’t important enough to focus on right now Byadding an item to the list, you’re temporarily absolving yourself of responsibility for acting orthinking about the idea until you decide to promote it to active status

I can’t emphasize this enough Focusing on one prime skill at a time is absolutely necessary forrapid skill acquisition You’re not giving up on the other skills permanently, you’re just saving themfor later

3 Define your target performance level.

A target performance level is a simple sentence that defines what “good enough” looks like How

well would you like to be able to perform the skill you’re acquiring?

Your target performance level is a brief statement of what your desired level of skill looks like.Think of it as a single sentence description of what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able

to do when you’re done The more specific your target performance level is, the better

Defining your target performance level helps you imagine what it looks like to perform in a certainway Once you determine exactly how good you want or need to be, it’s easier to figure out how toget there In the words of Charles Kettering, the inventor of the electric automobile ignition system:

“A problem well stated is a problem half solved.”

How you define your target performance level depends on why you chose to acquire the skill in thefirst place If your intent is to have fun, your target is the point at which you stop feeling frustrated andstart enjoying the practice itself If your intent is to perform, what’s the minimum level of performanceyou’re willing to accept at first?

Once you reach your initial target performance level, you can always choose to keep going if youwish The best target performance levels seem just out of reach, not out of the realm of possibility

As a rule, the more relaxed your target performance level, the more rapidly you can acquire theassociated skill If you’re operating under a world-class mastery mind-set, this may feel like cheating:you’re just lowering the bar so you can “win” faster, right?

That’s exactly what we’re doing, and it’s not cheating Remember, world-class mastery is not theend point of rapid skill acquisition We’re shooting for capacity and sufficiency at maximum speed,not perfection

It’s important to note that some skills have safety considerations, which you should always include

in your target performance level Getting hurt (or killed) acquiring a new skill defeats the purpose

4 Deconstruct the skill into subskills.

Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills Once you’ve

identified a skill to focus on, the next step is to deconstruct it—to break it down into the smallest

possible parts For example, playing golf is a skill that has many subcomponents: choosing the correctclub, driving off the tee, hitting out of a bunker, putting, et cetera

Once the skill is deconstructed sufficiently, it’s much easier to identify which subskills appear to

be most important By focusing on the critical subskills first, you’ll make more progress with lesseffort

Deconstructing a skill also makes it easier to avoid feeling overwhelmed You don’t have topractice all parts of a skill at the same time Instead, it’s more effective to focus on the subskills thatpromise the most dramatic overall returns

Deconstructing the skill before you begin also allows you to identify the parts of the skill that aren’timportant for beginning practitioners By eliminating the noncritical subskills or techniques early inthe process, you’ll be able to invest more of your time and energy mastering the critical subskillsfirst

5 Obtain critical tools.

Most skills have prerequisites to practice and performance It’s difficult to play tennis if you don’thave a tennis racquet, or learn how to pilot a helicopter if you don’t have access to one

What tools, components, and environments do you need to have access to before you can practiceefficiently? How can you obtain the very best tools you can find and afford?

Taking a moment to identify critical tools before you start practicing saves precious time Byensuring you have the resources you need before you begin, you maximize your practice time

6 Eliminate barriers to practice.

There are many things that can get in the way of practice, which makes it much more difficult toacquire any skill These barriers can be anything from

Significant prepractice effort Such as misplacing your tools, not acquiring the correct tools

before practicing, or skipping setup requirements

Intermittent resource availability Such as using borrowed equipment or relying on a resource

that has limited operating hours

Environmental distractions Such as television, ringing phones, and incoming e-mail.

Emotional blocks Such as fear, doubt, and embarrassment.

Every single one of these elements makes it harder to start practicing, and therefore decreases youracquisition speed

Relying on willpower to consistently overcome these barriers is a losing strategy We only have somuch willpower at our disposal each day, and it’s best to use that willpower wisely

The best way to invest willpower in support of skill acquisition is to use it to remove these softbarriers to practice By rearranging your environment to make it as easy as possible to startpracticing, you’ll acquire the skill in far less time

7 Make dedicated time for practice.

The time you spend acquiring a new skill must come from somewhere Unfortunately, we tend to want

to acquire new skills and keep doing many of the other activities we enjoy, like watching TV, playingvideo games, et cetera

I’ll get around to it, when I find the time, we say to ourselves

Here’s the truth: “finding” time is a myth

No one ever “finds” time for anything, in the sense of miraculously discovering some bank of extra

time, like finding a twenty-dollar bill you accidentally left in your coat pocket

If you rely on finding time to do something, it will never be done If you want to find time, you must

make time.

You have 24 hours to invest each day: 1,440 minutes, no more or less You will never have moretime If you sleep approximately 8 hours a day, you have 16 hours at your disposal Some of thosehours will be used to take care of yourself and your loved ones Others will be used for work

Whatever you have left over is the time you have for skill acquisition If you want to improve yourskills as quickly as possible, the larger the dedicated blocks of time you can set aside, the better

The best approach to making time for skill acquisition is to identify low-value uses of time, thenchoose to eliminate them As an experiment, I recommend keeping a simple log of how you spendyour time for a few days All you need is a notebook

The results of this time log will surprise you: if you make a few tough choices to cut low-valueuses of time, you’ll have much more time for skill acquisition The more time you have to devote eachday, the less total time it will take to acquire new skills I recommend making time for at least ninetyminutes of practice each day by cutting low-value activities as much as possible

I also recommend precommitting to completing at least twenty hours of practice Once you start,

you must keep practicing until you hit the twenty-hour mark If you get stuck, keep pushing: you can’tstop until you reach your target performance level or invest twenty hours If you’re not willing toinvest at least twenty hours up front, choose another skill to acquire

The reason for this is simple: the early parts of the skill acquisition process usually feel harderthan they really are You’re often confused, and you’ll run into unexpected problems and barriers.Instead of giving up when you experience the slightest difficulty, precommitting to twenty hours makes

it easier to persist

Think of this approach as an exercise in grit: you’re not going to let some silly little issue stop youfrom doing what you’ve decided you really want to do You’ll either solve the problem, or do yourbest until you reach the twenty-hour mark At that point, you’ll be in a better position to decide how toproceed

8 Create fast feedback loops.

“Fast feedback” means getting accurate information about how well you’re performing as quickly aspossible The longer it takes to get accurate feedback, the longer it will take to acquire the skill

Take the art of cheese making, for example The subtle chemical processes that create fine cheesesoften take months or years to complete, and there’s no way to rush the process without ruining theresult If it takes six months to determine whether or not your cheese is any good, the delay infeedback makes it difficult to acquire the skill quickly

Fast feedback naturally leads to rapid skill acquisition If feedback arrives immediately, or with avery short delay, it’s much easier to connect that information to your actions and make the appropriateadjustments

The best forms of feedback are near instantaneous That’s why skills like programming can becomemildly addictive: you make a change, and a few milliseconds later the computer tells you whether ornot it worked If you don’t like the feedback (“my program crashed!”), make another change and tryagain

There are many potential sources of useful feedback As Atul Gawande, veteran surgeon and

amateur tennis player, explained in an article in The New Yorker ,2 experienced coaches and mentorscan give you immediate feedback on how you’re performing and recommend necessary adjustments

Coaches aren’t the only source of fast feedback Capture devices, like video cameras, can help youwatch yourself as you perform Tools like computer programs, training aides, and other devices canimmediately indicate when you make a mistake or something is amiss

The more sources of fast feedback you integrate into your practice, the faster you’ll acquire theskill

9 Practice by the clock in short bursts.

Our minds are built to learn—to notice patterns, simulate potential courses of action, and figure outwhat’s probably going to happen next They’re not built to accurately estimate time—how longsomething will take, or how much time you’ve spent doing something

In the early phases of practicing a new skill, it’s very easy to overestimate how much time you’vespent practicing When you’re no good (and you know it), time seems to slow to a crawl, and it feelslike you’ve been practicing for a longer period of time than you actually have

The solution for this is to practice by the clock Buy a decent countdown timer3 and set it for twentyminutes There’s only one rule: once you start the timer, you must practice until it goes off Noexceptions

This simple technique will make it easier to complete longer periods of sustained practice, evenwhen you get tired or frustrated

The more periods of sustained practice you complete, the faster your skill acquisition Set asidetime for three to five practice sessions a day, and you’ll see major progress in a very short period

10 Emphasize quantity and speed.

When you begin to acquire a new skill, it’s tempting to focus on practicing perfectly—a recipe forfrustration Your performance, of course, won’t be anywhere close to perfection

Instead of trying to be perfect, focus on practicing as much as you can as quickly as you can, whilemaintaining “good enough” form

In Art & Fear (2001), authors David Bayles and Ted Orland share a very interesting anecdote on

the value of volume:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into twogroups All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on thequantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroomscales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an A, fortypounds a B, and so on Those being graded on “quality,” however, needed to produce onlyone pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an A

Well, come grading time a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were allproduced by the group being graded for quantity It seems that while the “quantity” groupwas busily churning out piles of work and learning from their mistakes, the “quality” grouphad sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their effortsthan grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay

Skill is the result of deliberate, consistent practice, and in early-stage practice, quantity and speedtrump absolute quality The faster and more often you practice, the more rapidly you’ll acquire theskill

That’s not to say that you should ignore good form while practicing Some skills, particularly skillsthat require physical actions or motions, require a certain quality of form to perform well If you’repracticing your painting technique, going Jackson Pollack on one hundred canvases in a day isn’tgoing to help you if your aim is to paint lifelike portraits Technique matters

First, ensure you’re practicing using form that’s good enough to satisfy your target performancelevel Once you’re practicing in good form at least 80 to 90 percent of the time, crank up the speed forfaster skill acquisition

That’s it: ten simple principles that will ensure you go about practicing your prime skill in the mostefficient and effective way possible

So Does it Work?

Will this method actually help you acquire skills more quickly? Research says absolutely

In academic studies of cognitive and motor skill acquisition, researchers have noticed a commonpattern: when study participants begin to practice a new skill, their performance always improvesdramatically in a very short period of time It doesn’t take much practice at all to go from “very slowand grossly incompetent” to “reasonably fast and noticeably competent.”

In the literature, this is referred to as the “power law of practice,” and it appears over and overagain The effect has been widely known among skill acquisition researchers since at least 1926,4 andit’s been replicated many times since in studies of both physical and mental skills.5 One study evenwent so far as to say “any theory of skill acquisition that does not accommodate the power lawfunction for learning can be rejected immediately.”6

Academic studies draw the “power law of practice” curve like this, with performance time on they-axis and practice events on the x-axis:

Since time is a quantity that increases, the curve slopes down With practice, it takes less time tocomplete a given task

It’s interesting to note that if you relabel the y-axis as “how good you are” (that is, you defineperformance in more general terms versus a unit of time), you get the famous and widely known

learning curve:

The general pattern of the learning curve looks like this: When you start, you’re horrible, but youimprove very quickly as you learn the most important parts of the skill After reaching a certain level

of skill very quickly, your rate of improvement declines, and subsequent improvement becomes muchslower

Contrary to popular usage, “steep learning curves” are good, not bad The graph makes it clearwhy: Steep learning curves indicate a very fast rate of skill acquisition The steeper the curve, thebetter you get per unit of time

You can think of the checklist I just outlined as a way to intentionally make your personal learningcurve steeper The principles themselves are simple techniques that make the first two theoretical

stages of the skill acquisition process (cognition and association) easier to do in practice.

Once you start practicing something new, your skills will naturally and noticeably improve in a

very short period of time The trick is to start practicing as quickly as possible Not thinking about practicing or worrying about practicing, but actually practicing.

It’s all too easy to feel like you’re investing a lot of time in a skill without practicing very much atall If you’ve wanted to learn something for a long time, you dream about being good at it, but you’re

hesitant to get started, you can spend years of mental and emotional energy without improving one bit.

If you don’t know where you’re trying to go or don’t have a solid strategy to get there, you can wasteequal amounts of energy in unproductive wandering

These ten principles are designed to help you eliminate this nonproductive thrashing and replace itwith activities that are fundamental to the skill acquisition process The more time and energy youspend moving through the first two phases of the skill acquisition process and the less time you spenddoing things that don’t help you, the more quickly you’ll acquire the skill Simple as that

What About Immersion?

This isn’t the only way to go about acquiring new skills, but it’s certainly the most flexible Othermethods can produce similar results, but they require more significant tradeoffs

The most well-known general method of rapid skill acquisition is immersion: completely changing

your environment in a way that results in constant deliberate practice If you want to learn to speakFrench, for example, learning through immersion would involve living in France for a few weeks ormonths

In general, immersion works If you move to France, you’ll be forced to practice your speakingskills every moment of every day for as long as you’re there After a few frustrating days adapting toyour new surroundings, you’ll notice your skills improving at a rapid rate

Immersion works because it ensures that you complete the crucial first hours of practice withoutfail: you can’t escape your environment, so the practice happens automatically

The downside of immersion is that it usually requires making the skill your primary focus for anextended period of time If dropping all of your commitments, packing your bags, and moving toFrance is a workable option, learning French via immersion is a good strategy

Unfortunately, most of us have commitments we can’t (or don’t want to) walk away from: family,work, mortgage payments, et cetera In these cases, immersion can be difficult or impossible

In the worst-case scenario, the idea of immersion becomes an active barrier: if you keep waitingfor an immersion opportunity before committing to acquiring a new skill, you can waste years ofvaluable time

Take the immersion opportunities as they come, but don’t count on them These techniques aredesigned to help you acquire new skills even if you only have an hour or two to spare each day

Reactivating Old SkillsIt’s also important to note that these principles are useful even if the skill you’re trying to acquireisn’t completely new to you It’s entirely possible to use these techniques to reacquire old skills inrecord time.

For example, I learned to play the trumpet in high school, and I practiced enough that I was prettygood at it Since graduating and going to college, I haven’t played at all

If I decided to pick up the trumpet again, it wouldn’t take very much practice to reactivate the skill

I already know the required subskills, so I’d focus on embouchure (controlling the muscles around thelips while blowing into the mouthpiece), reading notes and recalling the related finger positions, andreviewing basic music theory (beats, tempo, dynamics, and expression)

It would only take a few hours of practice to reacquire the skill Reactivation would mostly requiremaking time, eliminating barriers to practice, and practicing by the clock

Well Begun Is Half DoneSometimes you’ll want to give up the guitar You’ll hate the guitar But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.

—JIMI HENDRIX, RENOWNED ELECTRIC-GUITAR PLAYERYou won’t need to use every one of these principles for every skill you acquire, but you’ll alwaysfind at least a handful of them essential

I find it’s useful to think of these principles as a checklist Whenever you decide to learn somethingnew, just go though the checklist and decide which principles apply to your particular project

Here’s the checklist for rapid skill acquisition:

1 Choose a lovable project

2 Focus your energy on one skill at a time

3 Define your target performance level

4 Deconstruct the skill into subskills

5 Obtain critical tools

6 Eliminate barriers to practice

7 Make dedicated time for practice

8 Create fast feedback loops

9 Practice by the clock in short bursts

10 Emphasize quantity and speed

That’s it Apply this checklist to your current prime skill, and your practice will be more effectiveand efficient, allowing you to acquire the skill more quickly

As I said, this method isn’t rocket science It’s common sense, strategy, and preparation applied to

a skill you want to improve Nothing more, nothing less

Now, let’s examine how learning and research can make your skill acquisition process even moreeffective

3

Ten Principles of Effective Learning

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

—VOLTAIRE

•••

As we discussed in chapter 1, learning isn’t the same thing as skill acquisition That, however,doesn’t mean learning is unimportant Doing a bit of research before you jump into practice can saveyou precious time, energy, and emotional fortitude

Learning makes your practice more efficient, which lets you spend more of your practice timeworking on the most important subskills first

In that spirit, here are the ten major principles of effective learning:

1 Research the skill and related topics

2 Jump in over your head

3 Identify mental models and mental hooks

4 Imagine the opposite of what you want

5 Talk to practitioners to set expectations

6 Eliminate distractions in your environment

7 Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization

8 Create scaffolds and checklists

9 Make and test predictions

10 Honor your biology

1 Research the skill and related topics.

Spend twenty minutes searching the web, browsing a bookstore, or scanning the stacks at your locallibrary for books and resources related to the skill The goal is to identify at least three books,instructional DVDs, courses, or other resources that appear to be connected to the skill you’re trying

For rapid skill acquisition, skimming is better than deep reading By noticing ideas and tools thatcome up over and over again in different texts, you can trust the accuracy of the patterns you noticeand prepare your practice accordingly

If you want to be able to bake the perfect croissant, pick up a few good books related to baking andpastries Instead of reinventing the process, you’ll find existing techniques that have been perfectedover many years by the masters of the field If you see the same technique or process described inmultiple resources, chances are good it’s important to know

Once you’ve found what appear to be the most useful techniques, you can experiment with them inyour own kitchen, saving you a ton of trial and error

2 Jump in over your head.

Some of your early research will contain concepts, techniques, and ideas you don’t understand Often,something will appear particularly important, but you’ll have no idea what it means You’ll readwords you don’t recognize, and see practitioners doing things you can’t fathom

Don’t panic Your initial confusion is completely normal In fact, it’s great Move toward theconfusion

Early research is one of the best ways to identify critical subskills and ideas, but it’s also verylikely you won’t know what they mean yet The meaning comes later, once you’ve started practicing

Dr Stephen Krashen, the language acquisition expert I mentioned earlier, calls this

comprehensible input By default, the new information you’re consuming isn’t very comprehensible,

since it’s not connected to anything you know or have experienced Over time, the same informationwill become comprehensible once you have some experience under your belt In the words ofrenowned yoga teacher T K V Desikachar: “The recognition of confusion is itself a form of clarity.”

Noticing you’re confused is valuable Recognizing confusion can help you define exactly what

you’re confused about, which helps you figure out what you’ll need to research or do next to resolvethat confusion

If you’re not confused by at least half of your early research, you’re not learning as quickly asyou’re capable of learning If you start to feel intimidated or hesitant about the pace you’re attempting,you’re on the right track Provided you’re working on a lovable problem or project, the moreconfused you are at the outset, the more internal pressure you’ll feel to figure things out, and the fasteryou’ll learn

Not being willing to jump in over your head is the single biggest emotional barrier to rapid skillacquisition Feeling stupid isn’t fun, but reminding yourself that you will understand with practicewill help you move from confusion to clarity as quickly as possible